The Secret of the Beast
by Insanity0Rocks0My0Socks
Summary: There was once a boy who lived on the streets, but now he's a hero. "Things change, you can too." He whispered. "No, I can't." Was her reply. Confronted by a haunting past brought back from the grave, can he persevere or will he die trying?
1. P: Wish Upon a Star

Alright, this is the totally revamped version of the first chapter of my really crappy story! (claps) Yay! It's going to be mostly the same, but with some… Major differences as well… But don't worry! Those changes won't detour from the plot at all! It just makes things easier for me! But...My GOD my writing freaking SUCKED back then! ... Now, on with the story! R&R please!

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Prologue: Wish Upon a Star

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_"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."_

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~ Terry Pratchett_

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There wasn't a sound that reached her ears and yet so many that were loudly ringing. Darkness cast shadows all around her, closing in and suffocating her. There was no light yet the moon shone overhead. Nothing was aware of what was happening to her, but then…no one cared, did they? No one ever cared, not since she was born, so why start now?

Shaking away such dismal thoughts, she peered out from the dark in which she lived, piercing the shrouds of night with such intensity. Carefully, she peeled herself away from the wall of the alley when she saw her target.

Swiftly, down the narrow passage from one street to another, she slid around the corner without a thought. Her eyes flickered for a moment as she locked on the form of her intended prey. One chance…

He gaped, staring at her as she approached him from the shadows. "What-" But never would he be able to finish his question and never would anyone know what his dying words were, but him.

A bright light flashed in the darkness and she watched with dull eyes as the dark liquid fell to earth. For a moment nothing happened and then his body fell, collapsing to the ground beneath him.

"May death grant you something that life could never; solace." She murmured before turning around with a click of her heels. Easily, she spotted the eyewitness; a lowly hobo who chewed on a discarded chicken leg.

Their eyes locked for a moment before she looked away.

"Doing things you don't like isn't a way to live." The man said.

"It is, when it's all you can do." She responded after a moment of hesitation, looking at the man pointedly before leaving him to munch on his prize in silence.

Down, down, down, that was the only direction she ever seemed to go. She had once been told stories of people who went down for a while and then found their way up. But they were just that, stories. That didn't happen in real life…

But it did, it did for him. He was the lucky one, the one those stories are told about.

A dark scowl formed on her face as she clenched her weapon of choice. Before her thoughts could drag her even farther down the Slide of Destruction she lifted the phone from her pocket and flipped it open.

"The deed is done and I am returning now." She said into the device, scowling as she slipped away into the night, hiding from any prying eyes, especially those of the hobo.

Shutting the phone, she cut off communication and paused for a moment in the mouth of an alley, looking up to the sky, hissing from the bright light that seemed to attack her. There, like a disgusting beacon, calling the lost back home, was the tower she had begun to despise the moment she had come to this city.

It was a despicable creation that promised nothing but darkness and despair.

She had never understood why people nearly bowed to their knees in worship to it whenever they passed. While they offered gifts of gratitude, she spat.

Many times she had watched those who lived in the tower, watching them and what they did. Her eyes were trained to catch the slightest details, things that normal people missed. She saw more than anyone else ever would because those people of false smiles and fake masks were beings of evil. They only appeared to help the citizens when they merely do so for the pleasure of the people's praise.

It truly surprised her to no end when she saw just how blind people were. They couldn't see the things that she could because they chose to close their eyes to the truth. But she saw and she knew better than they. She knew what people were capable of and she knew better than to trust the people of the tower.

One day, when the world would need them most, they would vanish from sight, hiding away like the cowards, like the dirt they were.

Especially him, the one she eyed the most. He was the worst of them, hiding even more, running at the first sign of danger, digging others' graves for them. He was a creature of death and dismay and she'd seen him in the act when he tricked others into thinking things they shouldn't.

A master of trickery, that's what he was. He was nothing more than a lying scoundrel, a monster of deceit and false statements.

For the sake of the people, she'd show them just what these hollow statues were truly made of, what was truly behind the masks they hid under.

Turning her back on it, she no longer bothered to stop her fall into the dark abyss, so long as it promised salvation from such a place as this.

Blood dripped from her hand. She took no notice as she slid away into the dark pits of her life and her home, into the waiting arms of the world that protected her from dismay and depression.

This was her life now and always would be. She'd make him see that. _Wish when there is nothing to wish for._

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Wow… That was a lot darker than it had been when I first started this story years ago! But then, I was younger when this story was thought up! And now that I'm older and redoing it completely… It'd be no wonder why it's so dark, would it? …Don't answer that, please. It may not make any sense right now, but it will later! …I hope… (hides away before getting pegged by tomatoes)


	2. 1: Peace Where None Shall Be

Chapter 1: Peace Where None Shall Be

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_"We strive to destroy the evil around us. Yet, we often forget that there is no light without darkness, nor darkness without light. Perhaps a plant is the best analogy. A plant realizes that too little light is deadly, but it also knows that too much light is equally deadly. It is the balance of the two that makes the world."  
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_~Lycorne_

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_Commercial…Ad…Reality show…_ Beastboy was seriously beginning to think that he would die from boredom. Robin was training in the gym, by himself (he'd made that pretty clear to everyone), Raven was meditating (and he'd used up all his get-out-of-death-free cards that week already), Starfire was busy making some, strange food, and Cyborg was working on his car.

Sighing, he turned off the television and cradled his head in his hand, glancing over to the window and peering out. He was so bored he almost wished some criminal would get loose and cause trouble for the city so that he could just get up! Almost. He wasn't _that_ desperate.

Frowning, he felt goosebumps crawl up his arms all at once. He whipped around to stare behind him but saw no one immediately back there. Shrugging off the sensation, he stood and stretched just in time for the phone to go off, informing him that there was someone on the video screen calling.

Sighing, he walked over and pulled up the screen. "Hey," He answered, looking into the masked face of the redheaded Kid Flash. But as soon as the word left his mouth, the green boy felt that something was amiss. "What's wrong?"

"Beastboy, get down here. I know Robin is going to want to see this." Was the response the other Titan gave before cutting off communication.

Frowning, Beastboy pushed away from the desk and got up. Quickly, he raced off to go find Robin in the training room.

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It hadn't taken the five very long to get ready and get down to where Kid Flash was. When Cyborg's car came to a rest against the curb and Robin got off his motorbike, Starfire, Raven, and Beastboy all landed on the ground near their comrades before heading to the rarely somber redhead and his equally silent pink haired friend.

"Why did you call us down, Kid Flash?" Robin was immediately down to business when the other two Titans turned to face the new arrivals.

In answer to his question, both Kid Flash and Jinx glanced at each other and then stepped back to let the other five get a good look.

Immediately they all saw the answer for themselves. A man in his fifties lay crumpled on the ground, pale and cold from death. There almost seemed to be no blood, but his jugular said otherwise.

They had seen a similar death around quite a few times now. Many high up people had been killed in this same fashion, a single cut to the throat. And everyone seemed to have been made from the same weapon, by the same hand.

It had been two weeks since the last death.

Robin scowled in frustration before spinning and asking the police all sorts of questions about what they knew.

Meanwhile Cyborg was speaking to the two teammates. "Anybody know anything?" He asked, staring silently at the dead body of the man in the suit.

"Not that we could find." Kid Flash answered, shrugging.

Cy nodded his head and looked to Robin who was already returning to his friends. "Police haven't gotten anything. No one seems to have seen anything, again." It wasn't hard to figure out that he was pretty pissed, but was trying to calm down so that his mind would be clear. "Searched for any clues as to who did this, but they haven't found anything. They're going to perform an autopsy just in case, but we all know what they'll find." He muttered, thinking over the information of all the cases through his head, trying to figure out who was doing all these murders.

The rest of the team started to think over it to. They all knew what Robin had meant when he said "we all know what they'll find". Though it sounded mysterious it held no secret meaning just that they would find nothing. They never did.

"Shall we search friend Robin?" Starfire asked after a moment of silence.

Sighing, Robin ran a hand over his face before nodding. "We'd better. Spread out, we'll search the immediate area and look for clues. If you find anything, call the rest of us straight away." He answered, though it wasn't necessary. We were all expertly trained with these situations and what he wanted from us.

Quickly, we all took off, though none of us were expecting to find anything.

Pumping his legs, Beastboy raced off in the form of a green furred wolf. He sniffed down an alley, trying to find the trail the man had left before he had died. If he could find which way the man had come from, perhaps he could find where the other person had come from.

Down an alley, the green Titan sniffed along the walkway, trying to decipher millions of scents from each other, but not succeeding. Sighing, he plopped down, shifting back into his normal form. "This is no use." He grumbled under his breath, kicking a can away from him. "All this running around and searching for something we won't find. We haven't found this person yet, what makes us think we'll find him by doing the same thing over and over again." Groaning, he ran a hand through his hair.

Chasing away these thoughts, he sucked in a breath and was about to return to searching when he heard a cackle that caught his attention.

Turning around, he spotted an older man, somewhere in his forties, sitting on the porch of an alley doorway. The old man was cackling wildly, a gnawed-on bone clutched in his grasp. He was wearing rags for clothes and his hair was wild as was the scraggly bear that he had grown in his time on the streets.

"You ain't gonna get nowhere in the world with that sort of attitude." The man said, grinning at Beastboy, pointing at him with the bone. Against his wish, he noticed that the man had very few teeth left.

"I know, but it's true." The Titan muttered, wondering why he was explaining himself to this strange homeless man.

"Hm, that's true then isn't it?" The homeless man was nodding his head as though he completely understood Beastboy. "All the same, to say it and believe it is what makes it true."

"Huh?" Beastboy was seriously contemplating ditching the man and getting out of the alley, back on to the fruitless search, but the guild would gnaw at him for the rest of the day. Much like how the man was chewing on the little meat left on the bone.

The old man cackled for another moment at Beastboy before suddenly sobering up, staring at him intently. He was actually freaking the green boy out, a lot. "Fire'll swallow you up, no one can escape it. But there may be a bit of nature amongst the flames that could save ya." Then he started to cackle again.

Utterly spooked, the youngest Titan could only gawk at the man before being shaken out of his stupor from a call.

"Guys I think I've found something." It was Raven who was calling the rest of the team.

"Locking in on your coordinates." Was Cy's reply followed by words from Star and Robin.

"I'm on my way." Beastboy said, tucking his communicator back into his pocket. Glancing at the hobo for one more second, he took off, shifting into a peregrine falcon and took off, as quickly as he could.

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What Raven found was actually a discarded manhole. Seemed someone had made a quick getaway using the sewers below and hadn't had the time to cover the escape back up.

"Think it could be relevant?" Cy asked as we all huddled around it.

"It's possible and we can't throw anything out." Robin stated, looking to Raven. "Were you able to sense anything?"

Raven shook her head. "Nothing unusual for a place like this at any rate." She said. "But a lady across the way said that she had seen someone sneak into this tunnel last night pretty quickly, like they were running away from someone."

"That's worth looking into." Cy muttered before shuddering. "Ugh, I hate the sewers."

"Put it out of your mind. Let's go." Robin ordered before leaping to the bottom.

Cy followed shortly after with Starfire and Raven trailing behind.

Frowning, Beastboy looked up and around before he finally made his way down into the tunnels after his friends. He felt like he was being watched.

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I'd like to point out that things are pretty boring right now and…a little rushed? I dunno, I can't make up my mind if I'm going too quickly or too slowly.

On a random note, I'll be making random references. Why? Just to see if anyone will get them. Don't know if I'll do anything to reward you though because, honestly, I can't think of anything that would be a good enough treat for you people XD I mean, I guess you could appear in the story for a short time. What do you people think?

Review and tell me what I can do to make this better!

Snort….Rothelisberger?


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